


we don't need to dig our own gravestones

by blueberrydonut



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Family Dynamics, Found Family, Gen, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, Piglin Hybrid Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Suicidal Thoughts, Technoblade-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, but it's there just in case, but very brief - Freeform, is that not a proper tag yet or am i blind, not sure if the description is graphic enough to warrant the archive warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 06:21:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29554851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueberrydonut/pseuds/blueberrydonut
Summary: The day Phil brings a loud, tireless, soot-coated child into their serene cabin in the woods, Techno decides he wants nothing to do with the kid.However, the boy is annoyingly persistent.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s), Technoblade & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot & Technoblade
Comments: 6
Kudos: 109





	we don't need to dig our own gravestones

Wilbur is annoying.

It's something he will say with absolute conviction, whether prompted to or not.

The boy rips his books from his hands and tosses the aged texts around like they're worth less than dust. The kid skips up to him when he tries to spin his coral-colored locks into a braid, and yanks on the hair so hard his vision blurs.

Phil says to have patience for him—that he's "only eight." When Wilbur flips his plate of food onto the freshly-mopped floorboards, Phil laughs and ruffles the culprit's hair. When Wilbur breaks Techno's violin, snapping it at the neck, Phil says that he'll buy a new one once the snow melts. When Wilbur rips out Techno's hearing implant, Phil says that it was an accident—that Wilbur didn't mean to hurt him.

It's always Phil apologizing for Wilbur's mistakes. Wilbur never— _never_ —takes initiative to make amends, or change his behavior at all. 

Now, Techno is scowling, entirely deaf in his left ear, and it's getting more and more difficult to _have patience_ when he's nursing a migraine and Wilbur just _won't stop talking_.

His left ear is full of white noise; his right is incessant chatter. 

"Go away."

The words tumble from Techno's mouth easily—and the throb in his skull eases marginally as Wilbur's mouth snaps shut.

The boy stares at Techno through curly brown hair, animated arms freezing mid-air. "What?"

"Go away," he repeats, hands curling around the spine of his book. "Go bother the squirrels outside. Go shatter another plate. Go break everything in my room. Just leave _me_ alone."

Wilbur's eyes don't leave him, and his headache is growing unrelentingly—unbearably—sharp.

"But I like talking to _you_ , Tech'. Not the squirrels."

His tusks grind together. "I don't."

"You don't like talking to me?" Wilbur tilts his head, his nest of curls sliding down his forehead. "Why not?"

"I don't care about your stupid maps—your stupid geography. I don't care about you. Go away."

The flames roll around the fireplace, crawling over charred logs. The warmth coats them, shielding them from the howling winter wind outside.

Wilbur's shoulders slump. "Oh."

"Yeah, 'oh.'" He snaps his book open, ripping out the bookmark and slamming it onto his knee. "Get lost."

"Okay." Wilbur's voice has gone quiet, and Techno can hear light footsteps skitter toward the kitchen. "I can—I can leave. Sorry."

The last word makes him pause, locking on a sentence in the center of the page. He blinks up at the living room—at the empty doorway.

There's a draft floating through the air and licking his fingertips.

Maybe Wilbur opened a window in his journey to entertain himself. 

He breathes slowly through his nose. He tries to look back at the page, but the words bleed together and his pulse is pounding in his ear.

His head hits the couch cushion, and he huffs heavily into the air. An earlier conversation echoes in his ears.

_"He didn't know that would hurt you, Techno."_

_His left ear is muddy with thick brown water—blood—and Phil's inspecting it with furrowed brows. His vision is still spotty, and he has to blink rapidly at the dark specks to stop them from mixing into mind-shattering static._

_"He thought it was jewelry. Wanted to be like you."_

_He tries to touch his ear—to feel the extent of the damage. "He's an idiot. He should know not to touch people without asking, by now. He should especially know not to yank someone's 'jewelry' out."_

_Phil gently pushes his hand away. "He's eight, mate. And an orphan. No one's been there to teach him those things, until now. He'll learn—he will. You just need to give him time."_

_"Doesn't matter," he mumbles. "It's common sense to stop yanking at someone's ear when they start screaming in pain. It's just heartless, at that point. But whatever. It's fine. I'm fine."_

_Something cool slots itself into his ear, and his eyelids twitch._

_"Phil."_

_Phil pushes Techno's bangs away from his forehead. "Hm?"_

_"I can't hear anything." He detests how small his voice sounds. "From that ear. I can't…"_

_Phil's free hand slides absentmindedly through his hair, attention more on the ear. "Yeah, he—um—he doesn't really seem aware of his own strength. Might have to bring you in."_

_"I hate him."_

_Phil blinks, and then his expression crumbles. "You don't. Techno, please…just. Give him time—or try to, at least."_

_"I'm tired of being the one who suffers because he's 'still learning.' I've given him time. I've given him plenty of it—and I hate him. I hate him."_

_The room lapses into silence, after that—and Phil tends to his ear with a deep-set frown._

_"I'll talk to your doctor tomorrow; see if they can take a look at you."_

_"All right."_

His book falls heavily onto his lap, and he runs his hands over his face.

_I hate him._

The room is cold. His eyes roll over to the fireplace, and he wipes his snout with his sleeve.

"Wilbur."

The embers flicker. His voice slices through the air like a silver blade. 

The quiet stretches, after that: a blanket over the cottage. 

"Wilbur," he tries again, setting the book on the coffee table. He rises from the couch, stretching his limbs. "C'mere."

His headache is still violent, and he wants to force potions down his throat until he doesn't feel it, anymore.

Oh. That's probably not a healthy thought.

He dismisses that before he can really process it, opting instead to trudge through the silence and search for the source of his migraine. 

He pads to the kitchen, his bare feet cool as they press to the floorboards. He rounds the corner—and freezes at the grey light that spills into the house.

The front door is wide open, and snowflakes are slamming into the wood and staining the floor with the sky's frigid tears. The wind bites his snout, and he blinks at the tiny footprints that lead away from the house—into the woods. 

Automatically, he reaches for the wooden sword hanging on the wall, sliding his feet into boots too big for him.

He steps into the snow, and it crunches under him as he trails the footprints into the thick evergreen forest.

He can see his breath in the air, and his mustard-yellow sweater does nothing to keep the cold from settling under his skin. 

The wood is light in his hands. He prefers steel—but Phil says that he's still "too young" like before they crossed paths, he hadn't dragged blood-rusted metal through a candlelit arena for so long he forgot everything except that sound and the screams that followed it.

He's not a child.

He isn't. He lost his childhood a long time ago, under cruel laughter and money exchanged through handshakes. 

The weapon trembles as he holds it to his side—a product of the wind whipping it around.

"Wilbur!" 

A crow eyes him from the dense branches above, its beak tilting toward him at the sound. He presses past it, pretending he doesn't see the way its feathers twitch close to its body in the same way Phil's do when he senses something _wrong._

_I hate him._

His own voice taunts him, and his tusks clink against each other as his teeth chatter. 

He does. He hates Wilbur. Wilbur's annoying, Wilbur made him bleed—and Wilbur's too stupid to know that there are monsters slithering in the shadows of the forest. 

"Wilbur!"

Spiky branches hit his cheeks, slicing into them and catching on his sweater.

A twig snaps audibly in front of him—from the darkness spreading behind the trees.

His feet plant into the ground. He levels the wooden blade to the tree trunks, and his functional ear twitches, straining to listen. 

Something shifts in the dead shrubbery—and he's splitting an arrow in two before he even has the chance to think.

The shadows shift; a reanimated pile of bones comes into view just as they're drawing back another arrow. 

His ankles dig into the ground, preparing to charge forward, and—

"Tech'!"

His gaze snaps over to a familiar shade of brown. 

He thinks he says something, but any coherent thought is suddenly oozing from his ears and his cheek is hitting the cool cloud of snow below them.

What?

His head feels light, and it feels like there are boulders on his limbs, weighing them down. His eyebrows scrunch, and he tries to focus on the blurry trees around them.

He's in a forest, and…

Oh. Right. The skeleton.

_Wilbur._

He can't really hear anything—his ear is ringing too loudly—but he forces his legs to cooperate with him, and brings himself to his feet. 

He realizes belatedly that the sword is stabbing the dirt, and he yanks it into a sloppy battle stance.

He takes one step forward—two—and the bones scatter across the snow, falling apart under the force of the blade. 

He pants, dragging icy air into his lungs, and leans heavily on the weapon's handle.

"Tech'?"

Wilbur's voice is shaky—hesitant. 

"'M okay," he says, swallowing down the wave of nausea that slides up his throat.

"You're hurt." 

Something crunches in the snow, and he tenses, stumbling as he lifts his head and readies for another fight. Wilbur had taken a step toward him—and the kid's arms were hovering over his, like he would fall over with a gentle gust of wind.

"Don't feel it," he breathes, and it isn't exactly a lie. He's not in any major pain. It just feels like his thoughts are a deck of cards being shuffled at a speed unknown to man. "C'mon."

He pulls the sword up, letting it drag through the snow as he moves forward. He has to pause every now and then to breathe, and the cause of all of his problems just hovers anxiously every time.

He notices the arrow skewering his thigh the fourth time he stops, and doesn't think when he yanks it out and tosses it over his shoulder. Green dust and red juice spurt from the wound in time to the pounding in his ears, and he feels like he hasn't slept in weeks.

"I really think, um—I think you're really hurt."

"Don't feel it. 'S fine." His eyes are half-lidded, and he knows his blinks are longer than they should be—but he needs to get Wilbur home safely. 

Since, as much as he despises Wilbur, it'd probably make Phil upset if the kid died.

So he keeps walking, and a clearing in the trees peeks through the snowflakes.

"There." He rests his weight on a nearby tree. "Home's just ahead. Phil should be there by now. I'll—um."

It takes him a while to remember what he's talking about. His leg is a geyser, spurting red across the tree trunks.

"I'll…catch up in a minute."

Wilbur looks to him, his leg, and then the vague outline of the cottage in the distance. "Okay… I can bring Phil. 'Cause you're hurt. He helps, when you're hurt."

"It's fine. I'll put a band-aid on it."

Wilbur says something else, but the words are mush in his ear. He watches the boy vanish in the snow, and he blinks—or, tries to, at least.

His eyes just slip shut instead, and his head is too heavy to hold upright. He barely registers his body moving, hitting the cushion of snow and blood. 

_Wilbur's okay_ , he thinks, and for some reason that's what he clings to as the world fades into nothingness.

"—echno. Techno." 

There's a hand on his shoulder. Another is on his leg, putting pressure on his thigh.

He doesn't really know what's happening, and he probably makes that evident to the person trying to coax him into awareness when a long whine leaves his mouth.

"Techno. Hey. Think you can open those eyes of yours?"

He tries to pry his eyes open, and the most he sees is a sliver of white and green before they fall shut again.

He swallows; his throat feels scratchy when he slurs, "Can't."

"That's okay. Just keep talking to me." The voice—Phil's, his mind supplies sluggishly—is steady, a calming presence. "Can you tell me what happened?"

"Um. I think…something happened."

Fantastic. He's surely the most eloquent speaker of modern times. 

The tiny corner of his mind that's still coherent laughs at him—and the rest is merely trying to keep him awake.

"Yeah. I can see that. Did a person or a monster hurt you?" 

"Wh…what?"

He's not hurt. He's not even in pain, or anything—just very, very tired.

"A person or a monster, bud. Who hurt you?"

Wilbur answers for him. "A monster. He had a lot of bones, and it was really scary. The thing he put in Tech's leg was green, but he pulled it out after a little bit."

Why does Wilbur's voice sound hoarse?

"Okay. Shit." Something shifts near his right ear, and he's no longer on solid ground. "Wilbur. Get on my back—yep. Like that. Hold on tight. I'm gonna fly now, okay?"

He doesn't think the question is directed at him, but he nods anyway, head rolling into something soft. Warm. "M'kay."

The world drifts, and he floats in and out of consciousness. One moment, he's under an ocean of ink—and the next, there's wind in his clothes and the blurry image of dark feathers in cotton fluff.

The next time he blinks, his hair is pooling over his shoulders and the sound of metal scraping metal is distant in his ears.

Cement walls cage him, and a lantern's dim light catches on steel deep in his leg. Empty bottles are scattered across the room, and corks roll on the cracked stone floor.

There's clarity in pain, here. 

Instead of drowning in conditioned apathy, in the motions of swinging the blade through soft bodies, he breathes. It's hissed, forced, and not the near-mechanical, automatic breaths he's grown accustomed to taking. 

Pain reminds him that he's alive. He wants to keep feeling that.

He doesn't want to pull the metal out and down a potion. He wants to pull it out and let it bleed.

"Techno."

Huh?

People don't talk to him. They never do. 

He didn't even know he could still understand words.

They're probably here to put him back in the hole. 

He looks up. There are hands on his shoulders, and a familiar ocean blue bores into his skull. Blond mixes into it.

That's—

Phil?

Phil. That's Phil.

He knows Phil. Phil talks to him; Phil looks at him like he's alive.

Phil's good. 

Phil looks worried. 

"Techno. Kid. Do you know where you are?"

He's in the room, obviously. It's where they lead him when his knees hit the concrete and the world spins too much to aim the sword. 

"The room."

The wrinkles between Phil's eyebrows deepen at that. "Your bedroom, yes. Let's lie back down now, okay?" 

The hands on his shoulders guide him toward the…soft rock?

No. Rocks weren't a gentle violet. They weren't warm, and they didn't make him want to lean into them—unless it was one of those rounds where the opponent had fire. Then he wanted the cool pavement to soothe the burns.

Phil's thumb brushes his cheek. "Can you tell me some things you see?"

He's capable of that. Maybe.

He doesn't know if he can remember the names of most things, but he can probably describe them.

His eyes narrow on the lantern, and it wavers and blurs under his gaze, looking a little less real around the edges. "Light. On a hook. You, and…the sword."

Phil nods slowly. "Okay. What does the sword look like?"

He doesn’t need to look at the sword to describe it. It’s an extension of him. The grip is engraved in his fingers; he can feel it even when it’s not in his hand. "It’s stained with…blood. 'S metal. Not wood.”

“Not wood,” Phil echoes, words bearing the same glaring hesitance that dripped from the previous question. “Can you hand it to me?”

His thoughts are puzzle pieces, slotting together at a snail's pace in his brain. The lavender creaks as he sits up and reaches for the sword lodged in his leg—and he’s immediately met with a searing pain that shoots up the limb, zapping his spine.

He can only gasp against it, vision going completely white for a few excruciating seconds. He slams his head into the soft surface, and decides then that moving is simultaneously the best and worst idea he’s ever had.

He feels alive, but _oh god being alive hurts._

"Oh god," he whispers, stifling the wet coughs that threaten to escape his mouth. "Oh god."

He can't make noise. He can't make noise, or they'll squeeze his nose and force purple down his throat until he can fight again. 

He can’t do that. Not yet. Not yet.

"Hey, hey. Easy, Techno.”

Phil’s hand is lava when it grazes his leg, and he jerks away from the contact with a violent squeal he can’t manage to smother with his hands.

“Fuck. Shit. Sorry. Sorry, kiddo.”

His ear struggles past Phil’s string of apologies, because he can hear footsteps ambling down the hallway, growing nearer with each second, and _no, no, no._ He was too loud, and—

“Tech’?”

—and that’s Wilbur.

Wilbur is… 

Annoying. 

Wilbur rips up priceless books. 

Wilbur pulls out strands of Techno’s hair when trying to help him brush it. 

Wilbur’s too tall for his age, and he’s too graceless to keep anything on the kitchen table for longer than three minutes. 

Wilbur pulled out Techno’s hearing implant, and left him bleeding without apologizing. Wilbur ran out into the woods, too stupid to know that he was putting himself in peril. 

Wilbur is annoying. 

Wilbur means he’s home.

He cracks an eye open, and the walls are pristine, polished wood. He opens the other, and the floor is covered in a fluffy white carpet. 

His pastel purple comforter is a warm, comfortable weight on his torso. His legs are exposed to the air; one is swathed in bandages. There are little paper cranes on his bedside table, accompanied by a half-empty glass bottle trimmed in a magenta purple ribbon. 

Natural periwinkle-blue light flows into his room; his thin, sand-colored curtains let it pass. Phil is leaning over him, wrinkles deep in concern and shoulder-length hair disheveled. Wilbur is standing in the doorway, cheeks wet and eyes red.

Phil’s here— _Wilbur’s_ here—and he’s _home._

He’s home, and he’s swinging his legs over the side of the bed and reaching for Wilbur before any pain can register.

Phil says something in alarm, squeezing his shoulder—but Wilbur crosses the room with his stupid long legs and wraps his stupid, _warm_ arms around Techno. 

He breathes into the kid’s hair, still damp from the snow, and falls apart in the embrace. He shakes, letting embarrassing, strangled sobs out into the air. Saltwater seeps into the messy curls.

“I’m sorry,” Wilbur says, and Techno’s sweater is getting soaked from where the boy’s face is pressed to it. “I’m sorry, Tech’. I didn’t wanna hurt you—I didn’t—I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It’s my fault. I’m sorry.”

“I hate you.” The tears are cruising faster down his cheeks. “But. You’re barely out of the womb, 'nd Phil, he…he cares about you. So just. Stay. _Stay,_ you absolute moron."

"I'm sorry. I won't leave. I'm sorry."

He drags his face away from Wilbur when he feels mucus start to pool in his nostrils. As much as he wants to shatter and cry in Wilbur's arms forever, he isn't going to make the kid scrub snot out of his hair.

The soft blue light has shifted into a cozy amber, streaming through the window and glittering as it meets little dust particles drifting through the air. 

A heavy fatigue sets in his shoulders—the kind that emerges only after weeping. His lifeline grip on Wilbur's jacket loosens, and he tries to slide carefully out of the embrace—but the boy's fists are glued to his sweater, even in the trenches of sleep. 

"Guess moving is illegal, now," he croaks, gentle laughter shaking his frame. 

Phil's face is strange, wearing an expression he doesn't even know where to begin deciphering. 

Maybe 'melancholic' is the right word to describe it. 

Pensive? Contemplative?

Those are just synonyms.

A fond smile melts it away regardless. "Yep. I think you live there, now."

"Hug-bound for eternity at the will of a tiny child."

Apparently, that's the wrong response, since that look has swiftly resurfaced.

It's the same one the man wore when Techno first spoke of iron and blood, he realizes, and it makes him feel small when he's under it for too long.

He wipes his nose, turning to settle his chin on the head of tangled hair. Wilbur's back presses uncomfortably into his bandages, and the kid's nose is digging into his collarbones.

"I didn't feel home until I saw him."

The admission is quiet. A whisper in the dusk.

Phil lifts an eyebrow in a silent invitation for him to continue. 

"Not that I feel uncomfortable around you, or anythin'. I just…I dunno."

The man's colossal feathers are draped casually over the carpet; relaxed. He tilts his head subtly to the side, and the crinkle in his eyes shows that he _knows_. Phil always does, somehow. "Felt like something was missing?"

Wilbur's hair tickles Techno's cheek. His brother's breathing is peaceful in his ear. 

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, maybe."

Wilbur probably needs a healthier outlet for his energy; Techno probably has more than just physical injuries; and they _definitely_ need to have a proper conversation—but they're _home,_ and, at least for today, he thinks he's okay only knowing that.

  
  
  


  
  


**Author's Note:**

> will i ever find a way to drive forward the plot without gravely injuring the characters? the world may never know
> 
> also this is mostly just practice for writing in the present tense + writing flashbacks; i crave constructive criticism


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